This is about powerful people preying on powerless people…and I was about to finish this sentence with "for sex" but it applies in some non-sexual ways as well. Back when we were talking here about Harvey Weinstein, I wrote the following…
A large part of the reason Weinstein finally got exposed was that certain of the women he mistreated were or have become Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino — ladies who have become successful enough that they're not afraid they'll lose everything if they go on the record. Unknowns could and would be accused of lying to get attention and/or money. Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't need either. If he was only abusing unknowns, I bet he'd get away with it forever. I am reminded of how there were a lot of stories around about cartoonist Al Capp exposing himself to women and trying to blackmail them into sex. Many dismissed those accounts as lies until Goldie Hawn went public with the story of her unsavory encounter with Mr. Capp.
Ms. Hawn went public in a 1985 interview in Playboy and I think it kind of nudged open the door a bit — not nearly enough, of course — for later, more effective revelations about what too many powerful men have gotten away with for far too long. I know it did a lot to stop some folks from thinking what Mr. Capp did was in the category of harmless pranks or acceptable conduct. A lot of us wrestle with the problem of how to reconcile our thoughts about people who did things to be admired while also doing things that should have put them in prison. Al Capp was the first person who presented me with that conundrum.
On a recent podcast with Conan O'Brien, Goldie told the story of her — shall we say? — "encounter" with the creator of Li'l Abner and it's not a pleasant story to hear. It can and should make you uncomfy. But if you want to hear it, it's in this video excerpted from a longer conversation. Thanks to Ben Varkentine, a loyal reader of this site, for alerting me to it…